The Dwarf Me
I am still in the office at the time of writing - just felt I should pen this down.
I have been working with this colleague in the past 4 months. I find it difficult to click with her during the first month, largely due to cross-culture communication issue. However, as time goes by, we can chat just about anything. I must admit that she has been sharing more than I do. We would greet each other Good Morning! when she arrives at her desk (I am always earlier than her). She would always call me for lunch. If I am going elsewhere after work, I would let her know so that we could travel in the MRT together. She would be so happy when she knows that she would not be travelling alone (she stays near the Changi Airport!). In the MRT, she would tell me about her partner, how much she missed him, how much she missed her family, how much she wished she could afford to bring them over to Singapore, how many support issues does she have for that day, etc.
She would sometimes handle something wrongly at work and get lectures from our manager. She would accept her mistakes immediately. She would stand up to defend herself when she feels it was not her mistake at all. She would accept suggestions and feedback openly. She is proud of herself even if she is not perfect. She is always wearing that sleepy look every morning as she sometimes work from home until the AM. However, she would always put up that smiley face whenever she speaks to me.
She has so much burden and commitment, although being the second in the family. She would not hesitate although she has to support her elder brother's and parents' living expenses.
I just feel so small in front of her.
Oh! And she calls me Hoong. Haha.
Morning joy
Reached office this morning only to find an e-mail from my Head of Department.
I startled.
What have I done?
The e-mail was sent to my reporting manager, carbon-copied to me. He wanted my manager to initiate a RAM upgrade for my machine. So so so touched.
I stayed back in the office yesterday night, was so frustrated with my machine. It took me approximately an hour to finish a task that could be completed in 10 minutes. Yep, my machine runs at 512MB. Mr HOD passed by my cubicle and heard my machine spinning. He stopped and had a short chat with me. He began telling how he refused to work when he was given a slow machine like mine when he first joined, how he firmly told his boss that he would not stay back in the office to finish his work because it was not his efficiency that has made him unproductive.
What a great way to start my working day!
Lesson learned
I finally found motivation in my new workplace!
To be frank, I am still, not inspired by my current reporting manager. Haha. I have always felt that the greatest motivation at work is to be able to work under a highly esteemed manager, someone who can inspire you to perform and move forward. Such managers exist in my previous employments. I wasn't impelled at all during the past three weeks at work. Laziness began to set in and I became less productive.
Back to The Drive.
We have weekly meetings with our Head of Department. I joined this meeting for the first time today. This HOD leads a few teams including my team (the Workflow team), the SAP team, the B2B team and the Java team. That is all the teams I could remember for now hehe.
What is so great about him? For one, he could talk non-stop with no nonsense at all. Every word that came out of his mouth was either informational or something that could put you in deep thoughts. Secondly, he knows his teams very well and the projects that they do from bottom up. I realised this during a previous meeting that we had with our CIO (chief information officer) earlier this week. There was a small conflict of interest during the meeting. To make it short, our CIO wasn't too impressed by what team X was doing, he had expected faster delivery and he could not understand what was so difficult with the project. Mr HOD defended team X, with very detailed information about the project. At that time, the only thing that came through my mind was, How could he remember every detail so well? I mean, as a HOD who has so many teams under his wings, ah.. Lastly, I kind of admire his management ability or ummm, philosophy? He is one who does not believe 100% in Customer is always right, although the Company's motto is CITOP (customer is top) haha. He believes in his team, very very much. He encourages us, the technical people to drill down into the business in order to deliver a good solution. This.. I know very well already but he made it sounded more important that I have to continue working to achieve this!
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